Take That Biography

Take That are a boy band that originated in Manchester, England in 1990. Between the band's first single release in 1991 till their cataclysmic break up in 1996, the BBC describes Take That as "the most successful British band since the Beatles, beloved of young and old alike". Take That's dance-pop tunes and soulful ballads dominated the British charts in the first half of the 90s spawning two of the best selling albums of the decade with 'Everything Changes' 1993 and 'Greatest Hits' 1996, and according to the AMG Music Guides, "at this time were giant superstars in Europe with the main question about them not being about whether they could get a hit single, but how many and which would make it to number one".
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The band split in 1996 but, after a 2005 documentary and the release of a greatest hits album, they announced a 2006 tour around the United Kingdom.

According to an article in Rolling Stone magazine by Stephen Thanabalan, Take That were a relatively new phenomenon when they first emerged as they were the first British boyband and in fact were the British answer by RCA and BMG to arguably one of the first and most successful boybands of the America: New Kids on the Block. Proclaimed as the biggest male group since the Beatles, Take That's hype made it hard to distinguish the value of their material and it was not till some time after their break up that critics other than their legion of fans began to appreciate their albums of dance-pop and ballads. Sung by five young men, with a greater maturity than most boy band albums thanks to the writing by lead singer Gary Barlow, Take That were renowned around Europe for their fanatical female supporters and when they broke up in 1996, the British authorities set up large numbers of telephone help-lines to assist distraught fans.

Take That Members included songwriter Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, and Robbie Williams. Take That had a total of eight number one hits in the UK singles chart and the success of the band as both an act and a formulaic format inspired a cycle of manufactured Pop acts that came to dominate the UK music industry of the next decade. Take That's image was often described as purposefully homoerotic which may have contributed to their failure to break into the North American market.

Their first album, "Take That and Party," was released in 1992. Notable single releases from this album included "It Only Takes a Minute" and "Could it be Magic", covers of previous hits by Tavares and Barry Manilow respectively.

1993 saw the release of Take That's most successful original album "Everything Changes". Amazingly four UK number one singles were spawned from it - Pray, Relight My Fire, Babe, and Everything Changes. The fifth single Love Ain't Here Anymore reached number three on the UK charts. Everything Changes also saw Take That become an international success, although the USA market still proved elusive (Love Ain't Here Anymore was even remixed for American release with a more rhythm & blues sound but did not garner much attention.).

"Nobody Else", their 1995 album, included the songs "Never Forget" (subsequently released as a single in a Jim Steinman remix version), and their biggest hit single (and only American hit) "Back For Good", and was followed by the "Greatest Hits"-Compilation in 1996 by which time they were already a four-piece band.

The band's demise started in July 1995, when Robbie, wanting to get rid of his clean-cut image, went out partying hard with Oasis at Glastonbury. A mixture of management issues and disagreements due to this resulted in Robbie effectively being fired from Take That. Take That would continue as a four piece, although the band momentum waned.

On 13 February 1996, Take That announced that they were splitting. This would break the hearts of millions of fans worldwide - to an extent that hotlines were actually set-up around the UK to cope with fans' grief.

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